Hoping to see some updates for Rogue in the next build.
General changes for Rogue:
Make Expose Armor increase the damage of all bleeds
Make Ghostly Strike baseline
Assassination:
Combines bleeds / poisons together and rewards maintaining multiple buffs and debuffs
Remove Venom and Mutilate.
Increased duration of Expose Armor.
Poisons and bleeds generate energy to replace Seal of Fate
Eviscerate scales with stacks of Deadly Poison on the target
Replace Improved S&D with Increased Rupture damage from Serrated Blades
(Leave Serrated blades in Subtlety still and move S&D to Combat)
Move Hemo to Assassination from Subtlty to replace Mutilate
Move Cold Blood to Subtlety
Combat:
Combat should naturally excel outside stealth
Offhand attacks have a chance to generate energy
Move Flawless Execution and Improved Evicerate to Subtley
Give Improved Slice and Dice
Revert nerfs to Dual Wield Specialization and Precision
Move Setup to Combat from Subtlety to replace flat dodge chance
Consider moving Puncturing Wounds up to T1 to replace Improved Eviscerate if not Subtlety
Subtlety:
Subtlety needs to be reworked to not use bleeds at all
Change Dirty Tricks to reduce the energy cost of Ambush and Gouge
Combine Master of Deception and Camouflage into 1 talent
Move Puncturing wounds to Subtlety from Combat or move it to T1 in Combat
Move Improved Gouge to Subtlety
Replace Ghostly Strike with Flawless Execution
Give Subtelty Cold Blood
Change Serrated Blades to Evisceratedamage from Rupture
Goals
Use the tools a rogue already has in a unqiue way for each spec
Enhance the leveling experience and roation
Give a clear identity to each spec starting from early leveling
Give you a reason to invite rogues besides 5% more damage on a single target boss
Gameplay
Assassination:
Poisons and Bleeds generate energy giving you potential for cleave and strategy vs multiple mobs. This also makes using Garrote and Vanish more important. Rewards maintaining multuple buffs and defbuffs. Gain increased energy if you can manage debuffs on multiple targets during aoe rather than focusing on cleave damage itself. Uses Hemo to quickly add combo points to stack buffs/debuffs.
Combat:
Naturally stronger out of stealth with off-hand attacks generating energy. They also gain tools like Setup and Improved Slice and Dice early for a smoother on theme leveling experience instead of improved evicerate which doesn’t fit with their rotation early. Primary focus being sinister strike and slice and dice while leveling.
Subtlety:
Using gouge backstab, ambush and evicerate is the focus. They gain access to Improved Gouge and Puncturing Wounds to feel better using backstab more while leveling. Combining Master of Deception and Camouflage allows them to feel like a sub rogue and slightly solves mobility issues. Moving Flawless Execution and Improved Evicerate to Subtlety from Combat also gives them a smoother experience and rotation early more fit for this build. Gains access to Cold Blood to free up PvP talent choices.
Literally everything you suggested is a damage buff. You try to hide your “suggestions” as some veiled plea for better gameplay but in typical fashion, all you really want is more power.
Because you are also combining talents into one, basically getting 2 for 1, then also asking for energy reductions on core skills and asking for energy production on off hands…come on man. You’re transparent.
You currently can’t take increased speed while stealthed as a rogue, but it comes naturally as a feral druid. Survival hunters also currently get more offhand damage than a rogue. The talent combination is to compensate mobility that can only be used while stealthed and without adding things from retail like shadowstep. Combat currently has extremely low apm, so this is looking to make the rotation more exciting. The numbers are always subject to balance.
Exactly. I’m asking for it in stealth only. I think that is a fair compromise that plays on the strenghts of a rogue and still has weakness.
I’m referring the talent they already have though. It gives 30% mele crit damage and 50% offhand damage. I just don’t think they should naturally have more power than a combat rogue. I get slice and dice is very powerful, but combat also has no talents to support that whie leveling right now either.
They’re also converting a ranged into a melee though, which is why we have highly impactful talents like the two we’re talking about. If making combat worse here lets them make it better and more interesting elsewhere I’d love to see it.
I’m still holding out for the lack of communication on rogue changes meaning they’re working on something big.
Hopefully, but so far all they’ve done is nerf it from classic to give us poisons and sharpening stones with windfury. I can’t justify any other reason.
Edit: Also, agility gives mele and ranged damage, and it’s only one talent for them!
That leaves assassination completely unanswered though and lacks a clear identity between the two.
Unfortunatley alot of the swapping they did in Forever didn’t make sense.
This also creates a huge issue for PvP. Subs identity already was about positional damage, control and use of cooldowns. Bleeds in sub is new to Forever. They also break blind and gouge which are core mechanics of Subtlety.
Most of the swapping is to free up other mandatory PvP talents allowing you to grab mobility talents from combat as an answer to that problem.
I moved it to Subtlety as well, but want to make sure doesn’t conflict with combat daggers. It may be better suited for Combat but in another row like other people have requested.
Assassination remains a crit based, burst + executioner build as it was in classic.
Seal fate, cold blood, lethality, malice all support that theme.
Giving Quietus and Cutthroat to assassination allows for better execution damage and better combo point generation with lower costs on backstab.
Control, yes. Positioning - no.
Your primary damaging ability in Classic for Sub was Hemo.
If you were to couple the cheap cost of persistent hemo strikes (which procs poison application more frequently) with the sustain of bleeds and poisons, you have a very functional kit.
One of my other suggestions was to make Dirty Tricks not break gouge or blind. Bleeding to sub and poisons to assassination are mechanical choices they’ve ripped out of retail WoW thinking it’s an easy win. It’s not.
It is easier for combat daggers to build into sub or sin that it is for them to build into combat.
Unless they make puncturing wounds a tier 1 talent .
Exactly that. I think this is the best other choice.
I want to make sure there is room for counterplay
They can’t have an answer to every situation. It’s about capitalizing on those oppotunities when you can especially from stealth. If they gain too much damage all the time it feels bad to play against. Sub doesn’t need to compete with Assassination or Combat for DPS how I propose.
They were mandatory talents before which creates more issues
Rogues in classic left no room for counterplay, that was their whole design. They were meant to be great at 1v1 duels and kills, but suffer in groups.
But also there would be room for counterplay because sustain and bleed specs take time to work as opposed to burst.
Priests can bubble, mages block, warriors can spin around and mortal strike + overpower. Like classes aren’t helpless, especially in Forever where kits have been expanded.
Sub doesn’t have many options for PvE DPS in classic which is why nobody used it
Focusing on it being a sustain build gives it that PvE utilisation while remaining the control spec in PvP.
Not sure how these mandatory talents which were baked into the theme of assassination and played well were an issue?
It completely overshadows backstab and makes it redundant.
Better damage, multidirectional, more combo points, there is no reason to even have it on your bars.
It’s an ability from BC which just seemed shoehorned in like a bunch of other talents from later expansions.
You can’t make a spec have control, burst and high sustained dps as well - it’s too strong. This is the issue they just created instead of solving one.
We’re not looking to repeat the same mistakes
Every spec uses them so it didn’t really feel tied to anything.
Agreed but you’re leaving them dependant on positional damage now with no way to solve it
Here is my suggestion which I’ve punted for a few times. I’m only going to focus on the major part here because going over each spec doesn’t add or change alot of the bigger part.
Move Improved Sprint to tier 2 in Subtlety.
Move Puncturing wounds and Improved Ambush to Assassination.
Move Ruthlessness and Improved Slice and Dice to Combat.
Make Riposte do high threat.
Add a 0/1 follow up talent to Riposte - Change Feint to Taunt. Every time you dodge or parry an attack you strike the opponent with your offhand weapon for 10% of its white damage. This strike is high threat.
Adrenaline rush now additionally does an AoE taunt.
Add a new poison that slows attack speed by X% per rank and is high threat on proc.
Basically just move a couple pieces around in Combat and Assassination to make Combat into a Tank spec. This is a strikingly different play style for Rogues to have and gives them a new useful niche to occupy. A tank that mostly generates threat through sheer DPS, avoiding damage instead of taking it, and by being extremely single target focused due to the way combo points work. Since it would only have AoE in the sense of retaliatory dodge/parry, it still wouldn’t be able to do traditional AoE damage helping to preserve the class identity.
we dont need to take combat away to give rogues a tank spec we can just add more specs;
and none of this fixes the problem that rogues are slow AF and their core mechanics (combo points) arent able to be interreacted with in a way that teaches you how to play the class until level 60.
like are we actually supposed to have less 3 finisher per minute? thats absurd
I’ve not played in retail wow since Wrath was the newest expansion. But do all finishers still always use all your combo points?
What if some of the finishers only topped out at 1-3 combo points. Like if Slice and Dice was a 1 or 2 pt finisher and if you had more than 2 combo points it only used up 2 of those.
My proposed changes do increase apm without changing the core fundamentals
Combat can now generate energy with offhand attacks
Combat gets improved slice and dice earlier - their key mechanic
Combat also gains Setup and Ghostly Strike while leveling now
Combat is less about finishers doing direct damage overall than other specs and that is okay
And rogues don’t need everything. Gaining access to increased speed while stealthed is enough.
we can just add more specs;